There Are Things. A poem by Patrick Agnew

There are Things

in the air like rouge, thick cream flecks
spilling from my mother’s face when she coughed,
a thousand dots of colour floating down
in sunlight, like talc sailing up
from a baby’s bottom when the nappy is patted
in place, or dandruff as it spoils a pinstripe
like salt in the wound;
there’s the way snow gathers
against walls, drifts of it softening stone,
and how powdered sugar licked from Turkish delight spills
and children’s tongues follow in desperation;

And the shifting dance we do for sand in the sandals,
the smile that decorates her face
while flour hovers round the sieve
and smells from the fire sweeten the room,
as nectar evaporates to leave honey in the hive.

There’s the silence we observe beside ashes in the urn
and I hear pollen is getting rare;
There’s the air that gathers in the pleats and creases
of our lives
like a threat that must never be touched.

…………….

Patrick is currently working on an MA in Creative Writing in UCC.